Resolved Violent shake at idle

[98gstJames]

This car man… these things make me lose hope. Anyways, so I’ve been fighting my idle and I went to test it out today and started driving and made it about 30 feet when all of a sudden I heard what sounded like my cam gear cover rubbing against the cams, then my car died, the engine is fine and everything’s good on that side, one of the bolts on my trans to the engine came loose so I tightened it back up, issue went away and then I went to just pull my car to park it and I made it like two feet and it did the exact same thing only it kept doing the loud whining until I shut the car off, the same bolt came loose again so I made sure this time it was super tight. The bolt didn’t come loose again but my my engine is sitting there violently shaking, I can feel it shaking the whole car from inside the car and I know it wasn’t doing that before, I have one bolt missing on the back mount to the trans but I didn’t think that would cause this much of a shake…

 

[98gstJames]

Engine is not misfiring, checked all the cylinders and each one made the rpm’s drop so that eliminated that, I pulled my slave cylinder off the car to see if that would make a difference and the car didn’t shake like it was and was back to normal, I had a buddy push the clutch in while I was under the car and with the clutch pushed in my trans is shifting a little bit, started the car and bam it’s back to shaking, I checked all my mounts and put the bolt I was missing on the back mount in and still the same results, I try to put the car in gear and the pedal is shaking when I start to press it and then the pressure plate sounds like it’s grinding when I start to push the clutch in so that’s awesome.

 

[98gstJames]

Here’s the noise my car is making when I try to push the clutch in.

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[dwb]

Here’s the noise my car is making when I try to push the clutch in.

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Throwout bearing?

 

[99dsmer4g63]

Well if I was in your predicament I would pull the transmission before any damage is done if it hasn’t already. You can take the inspection plate off and see if you can notice anything but seems a transmission drop is in your future.

-Daniel

 

[98gstJames]

Throwout bearing?

Car has a brand new throw out bearing. New clutch and flywheel as well.

Well if I was in your predicament I would pull the transmission before any damage is done if it hasn’t already. You can take the inspection plate off and see if you can notice anything but seems a transmission drop is in your future.

-Daniel

What could cause this? If I look into the boot I can’t see anything out the ordinary, clutch moves in when the pedal is pushed and the bolts are tight so I just don’t even know what’s causing the noise.

 

[99dsmer4g63]

Can you take a picture of the clutch fork position coming out of the boot? The picture need to be taken square with the boot as in looking straight at it from the engine bay. Don’t take it on an angle as I want to see the position of the clutch fork in the boot.

What brand clutch/flywheel did you use?

I made a mistake of using a cheap clutch once. Learned my lesson real damn quick that clutch/flywheel is not the place to save money. Not to mention it’s a bigger job to fix later down the road with dropping the transmission to fix the problem.

Also take a peek at this and see if this helps before dropping the transmission

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-Daniel

 

[Mello]

Sounds related to disengaging the clutch. Are you sure you have all the bellhousing bolts in & torqued properly, including the 1 oddball bolt by the rear rollstop that goes in from the engine side? The bolt some refer to as the "crankwalk" bolt.

 

[98gstJames]

What brand clutch/flywheel did you use?

I made a mistake of using a cheap clutch once. Learned my lesson real damn quick that clutch/flywheel is not the place to save money.

Definitely not a cheap clutch issue, It’s a clutch master clutch kit and a ACT lightweight flywheel. Also fork position is sitting right in the middle and not at an angle like as if it was sitting too far forward or back, but I’ll still take a pic.

Are you sure you have all the bellhousing bolts in & torqued properly, including the 1 oddball bolt by the rear rollstop that goes in from the engine side? The bolt some refer to as the "crankwalk" bolt.

I have one bolt missing right beside the slave cylinder but I’m not sure which bolt you’re referring to?

I looked up the trans bolts on STM Tuned and I’m definitely missing the two bolts on the back side that go from the engine side to the trans, I’m gonna order the bolt kit and just put all the new bolts in the car and see what that does, hopefully it fixes the issue but we’ll see. I added a pic of the two bolts I’m missing.

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[DogWhistle]

Engine is not misfiring, checked all the cylinders and each one made the rpm’s drop so that eliminated that, I pulled my slave cylinder off the car to see if that would make a difference and the car didn’t shake like it was and was back to normal, I had a buddy push the clutch in while I was under the car and with the clutch pushed in my trans is shifting a little bit, started the car and bam it’s back to shaking, I checked all my mounts and put the bolt I was missing on the back mount in and still the same results, I try to put the car in gear and the pedal is shaking when I start to press it and then the pressure plate sounds like it’s grinding when I start to push the clutch in so that’s awesome.

Car has a brand new throw out bearing. New clutch and flywheel as well.

The “bam” you heard, along with the strange behavior of the clutch may indicate that a flywheel bolt came loose and is caught in your clutch assembly.

 

[98gstJames]

Got bad news, it’s fixable though.

So I went to put the “jesse” bolt in the trans and it’s one of the ones that goes from the engine side to the trans, and well, the bolt wouldn’t go in so I was like huh. So I grabbed my camera thingy and and looked and well to me it looks like there’s a bolt broke off in the trans so that’s nice.

I know I didn’t take that bolt out when I pulled the motor so I’m assuming it broke off before I even had the car so not sure why it now decided to split on me but anyways, I just want to be sure that it’s a bolt in there and I’m not just crazy so I’ll add a pic of the hole and a pic of a trans showing which hole I’m talking about.

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Definitely causing the trans to sit a little offset causing the flywheel and pressure plate to touch on the one side and not touch evenly causing that got awful noise.

How tight should that bolt be in there? I’ve been trying to get it out with my easy out but it’s just been a pita and I really don’t want to pull the trans just to get one single bolt out but if dropping the driver side cv doesn’t give me the room then I’ll drop the trans. I just wasn’t sure how tight that bolt is considering how much of a pain it’s being.

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

That bolt is smaller than all of the rest. Are you sure you are using the right size bolt? I can't really see a bolt or broken bolt in the picture (but my eyes are OLD).

 

[dwb]

How tight should that bolt be in there? I’ve been trying to get it out with my easy out but it’s just been a pita and I really don’t want to pull the trans just to get one single bolt out but if dropping the driver side cv doesn’t give me the room then I’ll drop the trans. I just wasn’t sure how tight that bolt is considering how much of a pain it’s being.

It's probably seized, cross threaded, and/or bottomed out. No telling how much torque it'll take to crack loose.

Penetrating oil, heat, reverse drill bit, and an easy-out. Just be careful not to break a drill bit or easy-out.

 

[pauleyman]

It is small (8mm) and threads into the aluminum case. If you didn't notice, the block hole is larger than the bolt that goes through it in this case. Are you sure you're not trying to turn the easy out and dig into the case?

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

I couldn't see a bolt in that hole Paul, but like I said, my eyes are old. I think the OP is trying the wrong size bolt in my opinion also.

 

[99dsmer4g63]

Like Paul said the bolt is smaller the block which is the side I think you are drilling from. So be sure not to drill through the entire case at the same dimension as the block.

The block has threads there too which I use for putting on an engine stand. Depending on the bolt size someone may have made the mistake of threading a bigger bolt than what the transmission should take and may be why it’s snapped already.

-Daniel

 

[98gstJames]

Alright so I am aware that the bolt is smaller than the rest. I bought the bolt kit that has all the bolts and followed the diagram, also I was very very careful to be sure that I got onto the bolt and not the case.

I just got the easy out to go in a little bit but it just wouldn’t dig it kept wanting to not dig, but I also couldn’t apply full pressure to it to help it dig so I stopped trying and pulled the CV out to make a little more room, if this fails then I’ll drop the trans.

I just wasn’t sure how tight it was gonna be so I had to ask.

 

[pauleyman]

Typically I screw it out with my fingers but since it's broke hard to say in your case. If you don't know history maybe somebody muscled in an SAE bolt.

 

[Blinkyblinx9]

Looks like there should also be an alignment dowel there as well.

 

[98gstJames]

Wound up having to pull the trans, I finally got it and just gotta put the trans back in now so hopefully once it’s back in the issue is gone.

 

[Dericsh]

Anything else look out of place while you had it apart?

 

[98gstJames]

Anything else look out of place while you had it apart?

As far as I can see everything looks to be good, TOB still spins fine and moves good and the fork seems to be good as well. I’m hoping to have it all bolted it up tomorrow so we’ll see how everything is then.

 

[98gstJames]

After life took a good bit of my time I was finally able to get the Eclipse fully bolted all back up and tested it, we’re back in business. I’m hoping everything goes good from here with that but time will tell.